Thursday, November 1, 2012

Adios Smokers

Well, I've come to a permanent decision. I'm going to stop blogging about smoking cessation. I've grown weary of trying to help nicotine addicts who refuse to recognize their problem, and I'm tired of fighting against the insidious forces seeking to profit from smokers' addiction.

If you are smart enough to never begin smoking while in your youth, kudos to you on recognizing that nothing good EVER comes from a nicotine addiction, and for recognizing that many people whom you "think" are on your side are actually trying to exploit you. You've done yourself a tremendous favor.

However, if you've decided to begin smoking or continue to be a smoker, I sincerely feel bad that you've relegated yourself to being tossed into the "exploited" bin by almost everyone. Statistically, you're doomed to suffer from your addiction for the rest of your short life, and you don't even care.

And you know what? I'm tired of pissing into the wind.

If the tobacco industry has successfully targeted you, your family and your "friends" have failed you, and many in the rest of society considers you their pocketbook to self-enrichment, who am I to try to convince you otherwise? You're on your own as far as I'm concerned.. but I wish you the best.

In Fiscal Year 2013, the states will collect $25.7 billion in revenue from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend only 1.8 percent of it – $459.5 million – on programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit. This means the states are spending less than two cents of every dollar in tobacco revenue to fight tobacco use.

"Public relations companies might take their own view of what they regard as ethical, but it would clearly be unacceptable for any health-care organization to engage with a company that is simultaneously working to oppose public health legislation."

The main impetus behind my decision to change my views and slowdown my efforts was, what I considered, a poorly-designed study promoted by anti-tobacco advocates in order try to get more people to quit smoking. Since then, there has been another similar study promoted.

I won't delve into the details of the studies, but suffice it to say that I believe those studies could accomplish just the opposite of their intention, and may mistakenly lead people into thinking that long-term smoking is safe up until a certain age. It isn't.

Tobacco control research is under huge amounts of scrutiny from those trying to undermine it. Poorly conducted experiments where the conclusions overstate the actual findings make public health's battle with vested interests all the more difficult.

"Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who highlighted the dangers of secondhand smoke and supported a ban on all tobacco products, is joining the board of directors for NJOY, the nation’s leading electronic cigarette company.."

How do you fight against an industry that survives only because of lower-level selfish enablers who'll sell their soul for a few pieces of silver support their efforts? It's discouraging when people just don't care, and when the ones that do care are so easily manipulated. I'm not sure what more can be done to get people to realize how they're being "played" by the tobacco industry and the Libertarian billionaires who see them as their prey?

I'd like to believe that turning on the light would give smokers, and other Americans, the ability to see things as they are. But unfortunately, even if you turn the lights on, many people will just close their eyes. However, I'll cynically post this bit of important research anyway.

"Rather than being a purely grassroots movement that spontaneously developed in 2009, the Tea Party has developed over time, in part through decades of work by the tobacco industry and other corporate interests. It is important for tobacco control advocates in the USA and internationally, to anticipate and counter Tea Party opposition to tobacco control policies and ensure that policymakers, the media and the public understand the longstanding connection between the tobacco industry, the Tea Party and its associated organisations."

I knew that I should have quit wasting my time when I wrote this post, but my idealistic side convinced my cynical side that I was doing something worthwhile. Man, was I stupid.

I should have known that it was always going to be about the money, regardless of partisanship.

The way I see it, after all of those years of scientists discovering the addictive properties of nicotine and the harmful health effects of tobacco, including the thousands of industry-sponsored studies proving such, it is beyond any reasonable doubt that commercial tobacco products are addicting and disease-causing.

As such, any further focus and financing on tobacco regulation should be on the prevention of tobacco/nicotine use in children, and helping already addicted smokers to quit. Further "study" on tobacco and nicotine addiction science is not warranted. We already know that it's bad! The best way to reduce the burden and devastation of preventable disease caused by tobacco use is to keep it out of the hands of children and young adults.

So, when I read today's FDA News Release about the Government spending up to $273 million dollars over the next five years to research all of the tobacco products AGAIN, and on behalf of the tobacco industry, I realized that it's all about the money.

I see this move as Big Tobacco manipulating the FDA's political leaders to get what it wants, and throwing money at the anti-tobacco researchers in order to appease them. My trusting foolishness disgusts me. So, now I'm really done here.

Before I go, let me leave you with this tidbit of information about how well the Government performs it's duties in the regulation and enforcement of tobacco.

According to a U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General's September 2013 Audit Report of the ATF (pdf), government agents acting without authorization conducted dozens of undercover investigations of illegal tobacco sales, misused some of $162 million in profits from the stings and lost track of at least 420 million cigarettes.

In one case, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sold $15 million in cigarettes and later turned over $4.9 million in profits from the sales to a confidential informant — even though the agency did not properly account for the transaction.

The audit described widespread lack of ATF oversight and inadequate paperwork in the agency's "churning investigations," undercover operations that use proceeds from illicit cigarette sales to pay for the ATF's costs.

I'll leave it up to you to decided if this choice was made for altruistic reasons, or because of the money? But I'm not fooled. Charles Connor, president and CEO of the American Lung Association from 2008 to 2012, joined the Electronic Cigarette Industry Group (ECIG) on Thursday as a paid consultant.